Bird Box shows that social media has become, well, everything
Multiple birds, multiple boxes
"Have you seen Bird Box on Netflix? I really want to see it." my 19 year sister told me as I was preparing to leave to Seattle for New Years weekend.
"No, I haven't, what is that?", I murmured kind of carelessly, half listening thinking about what I needed to still pack.
"It's this show that everyone's talking about. We should watch it when you come back.", "Okay, sounds good." *smile*
48 hours later in Seattle, slightly hungover, my 30 year old college bud, "Wanna go to the movies?", me: "Eh, there's nothing too good out, let's just stay here and chill.", him: "Wanna watch Bird Box? Everyone's talking about it.", me: "My sister was going on about that back home, sure, I guess."
*we watch Bird Box, pausing every 30 minutes to discuss*, it's fairly thrilling to my 25 year old eyes
*movie ends*, okay, I can't hold back any more, open Twitter, #BirdBox is trending, open Instagram, search ...#birdb...Instsgram suggestion #birdboxmemes, *click*
We now spend the next 30 minutes on the couch showing each other Bird Box memes from Instagram and Twitter, laughing, making up our own memes in conversation. It becomes the running joke insert of the weekend.
I get back home from Seattle and tell my 47 year old Dad about Bird Box, he's already known about it from Facebook videos and memes, but also tells me that some scenes were filmed right by my grandma's house. I do some Googling, crap, it is indeed, rad.
I spend the next two days clicking on articles about Bird Box and also telling people to watch it. It comes up in about 1/3 of my conversations.
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'Bird Box' Breaks Netflix Viewing Record In Its First Week - Entertainment Tonight
With 'Bird Box' and 'Bandersnatch,' Netflix flexes movie muscles - NBC News
Netflix viewers for new film 'Bird Box' soars - Yahoo! Finance
Social media used to be a new thing, it used to be something young people were hooked on, it then became huge, then grand, disastrous, globally influential in politics, and now, how conversations and ideas flow in modern society.
In these days, maybe you're just notorious on Vine and Instagram, but the next day you're on television, and then suddenly leading a billion dollar industry or creating one.
Social media, poorly named, was the highway of nearly all conversations, opinions, ideas, information and entertainment in 2018. The movies, fashion brands, celebrities, politicians, and new ideologies that dominated in 2018 were ones with not only a social media presence, but were social media friendly. Funny, visually significant, 160 characters or less, simply told, and aspirational.
Politicians tweeted more than ever to get ideas sharply across, people in France wore yellow jackets that created an image easily uploaded, and movies that fell into social media culture of memes and conversation, well, they exploded into culture and permeated the air. They turned into real value beyond the social platforms and into cold, hard influence and acquired customers.
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Back to Bird Box. Is it the best movie ever made? That doesn't matter. It's a cultural phenomenon, therefore, it's a phenomenal movie.
It started out popular with Gen-Z within their social media groups and trickled upward to Millennials, Gen X, and Boomers. Since we live with Gen-Z, we talk to Gen-Z, and we are connected with Gen-Z on social media, it spread, and it manifested. It went from Instagram video to NBC broadcast. From CGI birds in a box, to Twitter characters, to the ornamental birds in grandma's living room.
Okay, but how did that process start? I think Netflix probably positioned the movie via its algorithms to show Gen-Z types the movie, and displayed the movie in a way they would be interested. The power of data and understanding to get the ball rolling here is crucial. Having Sandra Bullock gracefully leads the movie into the slightly more timid and crucial eyes of Millennials and Gen-X. Insight. Positioning. Foresight. -- all things that push the chance of luck to spark that sweet virality into the world's hubs of conversation and culture.
It doesn't stop at social media here, and this can't be stressed enough. People got off social media, turned on their TVs, tapped Netflix icons around the world, and either hit play or entered their credit card information, and then hit play. Dollars migrated, fans were created, and for some, and entirely new door of entertainment was opened, possibly influencing almost every decision they make when deciding to be entertained going forward.
Netflix has again become the talk of the town, the critics took this serious, the press took this serious, Wall St. took this serious, and now we're all slightly shifted as a society, from a few birds and a few boxes.
If you want to build your future clothing brand, R&B career, or entertainment company in 2019, start on social media. People do log off, and they do consume a lot of other products, but not until after consulting the digital conversation highway: social media.